The fun never stops ...

Here's page 89 from the Department of Work & Pensions' departmental report (click to enlarge):
As you can see, their total budget for next year is £163 billion, a bit more than a tenth of GDP, which is fair enough in the grander scheme of things, you can't just let a third of the population starve (11 million pensioners, 5 million dole claimants plus offspring). The fun part is the DEL figure of £9.698 billion, which is their administration costs.

Yup, even ignoring the fraud and error that adds at least five per cent to the cash cost of benefits paid out, their running costs are six per cent of what they pay out, and this does not include the administration costs for Housing & Council Tax Benefit, which are paid out locally (and which are almost certainly higher in percentage terms, as the amounts paid out are usually lower) or the costs of paying out Tax Credits, which HM Revenue & Customs quote as 3%.

This is yet another argument for flat-rate, non-means tested benefits, of course.